


While My Topolino Sleeps

by der_tanzer



Series: Protective Custody [12]
Category: Riptide (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-19
Updated: 2010-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-09 14:10:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/der_tanzer/pseuds/der_tanzer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quinlan thinks thinky thoughts, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	While My Topolino Sleeps

**Author's Note:**

> Tag for Arrivederci, Baby, but no real spoilers.  
> 

He asks me why I do it and I can't answer. I never knew it could be this hard, being with a man. I had a hard time with women, but that's normal. I never did understand women—not even my mother. But I always got along with men, when I wanted to. I understand them, I know how to talk to them. I always have. Until _he_ came along.

I know I hurt his feelings, but I'm not sure exactly how. Okay, fawning over his friend Angelo was a bit much, but I've been a fan of that guy since I was a kid. He's the underwater master, so far as I'm concerned, and don't even mention Jacques Cousteau. Jacques can suck it, for all of me. Angelo Guirilini is the man, and that's that. So I _had_ to get his autograph; anybody would have.

But Murray did have a point, I guess. He _is_ one of the foremost computer scientists in the world, and I never have shown him any real respect for it. The thing is, he's so smart, and he does such a good job of making me look stupid anyway, I hate to make it any easier. Poor kid. He's got every right to my respect, and he has it, but when he makes those demands in public, all I can do is shut him down. I do have an image, after all.

But I didn't mean to hurt his feelings with that goofball remark. That's what I mean about understanding men. Men say things like that, and we all know it's a joke. I couldn't have put any more affection in it if I'd called him _baby_, and he still looked like I'd kicked him for no reason. So what can I do? If I stop teasing him, that's going to look wrong as hell. But that look on his face, that hurt feelings with a side of betrayal, I can't keep getting that. Ruins my whole day, somehow.

Oh, he paid me back, though. Went off to sea without me, and then took that girl on a date the day he got back. Made sure I'd hear about it, too, when I went out to see him. _Don't wait up for us._ Ryder enjoyed telling me that part. Real cheerful bearer of bad news, that guy. See if he's still laughing tomorrow when I have his car towed. I don't care if it _is_ parked legally, it's gettin' towed from somewhere, if I have to spend all day looking for it.

Not that I think Murray had anything going on with that Giovanna chickie. He probably could if he wanted to, but I know better. He might've stayed out late with her that first night, but her ship's still in port and he's here in my bed now, sleeping like a baby. I ain't kidding myself that anyone who goes both ways would pick me over her without a real good reason.

Maybe that's why I can't help being such an asshole. He just loves me so much and I know I don't deserve it. No one ever loved me like he does, not my parents or my brother or that poor girl I married back when I was trying to please everyone but me, and I can't help thinking that if it took fifty-odd years for someone to decide I was worth it, I'm probably not. More likely he's wrong than all those other people. Although he is a lot smarter than any of them.

My brother went to college, but he's still no Murray Bozinsky. Greg's a lot younger than me—twelve years, if I remember right—and he always looked up to me like I was some kinda hero. Like going to war made me special. Well, maybe it did. I don't know. But that was over the first time he saw me kissing a guy in a bar in San Francisco. We been at odds ever since. Our folks knew before then, that was why they pushed me so hard to marry Lisa. She was supposed to fix me and all I did was screw up her life, too. My old man died a little the day I told him I was getting divorced, that I couldn't live the lie anymore. And when he had that stroke a year later, they all blamed me. Like I was the one pouring his Scotch and covering everything he ate in a half-inch of salt. No, it was having a queer son that killed him, and that's all there was to it. Greg says mama died cursing my name, but I don't know. I wasn't there. Didn't even know she was sick until the day before they buried her.

Murray doesn't know these things, and he doesn't need to. He's got enough reason to hate me without hearing about how everyone else does. The look on his face when I called him a goofball in taped glasses was bad enough. I don't want to see the one he'd put on when he found out I killed my old man. And probably my mama, too. Kid thinks too much about family to be able to handle something like that. But then he's got a good one.

Someday, somehow, I'm gonna make all this up to him. Everything I've said and done to hurt him for no reason, all the times I put him down to make myself feel bigger—God knows how much I owe him by now. God, and maybe Murray. If he's keeping tabs, the bill's gonna be huge, but I'll try to pay it. Someday.

Maybe I'll start by asking for his autograph.


End file.
